THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 637 



prospers, not on account of his system of admission fees, but in 

 spite of it. 



We have gone far enough now in our course of reasoning to 

 see that in the light of the elemental principles of existence the 

 evils of protection are very great. Its greatest evil is that it 

 interferes with the free exchange of human activities ; it puts a 

 check upon justice, fraternity, and love. But a great evil can 

 not exist without engendering other evils. Another evil en- 

 gendered by the protective system is that it encourages poor 

 and defective work. If a man is sure of plenty of trade, no 

 matter how he makes his goods, he will not be so particular 

 with regard to the quality. Ask an American oculist where he 

 gets the delicate instruments with which he tests the eyes of 

 his patients. He will tell you, if he is an expert at his profes- 

 sion, that he gets his instruments abroad. Why ? Because the 

 men in this country who produce such articles are not careful 

 to do good work. They can make inferior instruments and sell 

 them to the generality of oculists who are not expert, and make 

 more money than they could by producing really excellent arti- 

 cles, and selling them at the same price as the foreign goods. If 

 you buy a suit of cheap clothing in this country, the chances are 

 that it will be of little service compared with a suit of clothes 

 you could buy for a third less if you were living in London. 

 Why ? Because the tariff on woolens enables the American 

 manufacturers of clothing to use cheaper and poorer goods, and 

 to charge more for a suit of clothes than the foreign suit of first- 

 class material would cost if you could send to London and buy 

 it without being fined for patronizing an English tailor. As a 

 matter of fact, a great many rich Americans who go abroad do 

 patronize foreign tailors and do not get fined, but of course the 

 poor Americans who have to stay at home and support the tariff 

 system can not do this. They must buy poor clothing of their 

 fellow-citizens and pay nearly as much for it as they would for a 

 foreign article of excellent quality. American clothing manu- 

 facturers will tell you that they can make as good clothing as a 

 foreigner can and at as low a price. Of course they can, but 

 they don't. If they did, they would not be in favor of protection ; 

 they would be willing to meet the foreigner on terms of friendly 

 competition, and not take advantage of him by skulking behind 

 the tariff wall maintained at the expense of the people who do 

 not make, but who buy, clothing. 



Imagine a community isolated from the rest of the world, and 

 that this community suffers from a water famine. All the wells 

 have dried up, and water has to be brought from a distant river. 

 Each person goes after what water he needs, or employs some one 

 else to bring water for him, and every one is supplied. But a few 



